16% 'find mortgage payments harder'

One in six homeowners are finding it harder to keep up with their monthly repayments, despite mortgage affordability reaching its best level for 10 years, research suggested today.

The average homeowner spent just 15.4% of their take-home pay on mortgage repayments in December, the lowest level since Barclays first started carrying out the analysis in 2002.

The group, which analysed transactions from 1.3 million current accounts, said the high levels of affordability had been caused by the record low level of the Bank of England base rate, as well as pay rises people had received since interest rates first fell.